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What's to stop San Francisco from creating a lot more high-density housing? Doesn't that solve many issues with housing supply? Looking at wikipedia, the densit

What's to stop San Francisco from creating a lot more high-density housing? Doesn't that solve many issues with housing supply? Looking at wikipedia, the density is crazy low even compared to other major cities in the US.

santaclaus 9y ago
> What's to stop San Francisco from creating a lot more high-density housing? Entrenched residents who oppose new construction, primarily. Look at the recent kerfuffles involving residents opposing the replacement of parking lots with housing.
- WillPostForFood 9y ago
  Lack of infrastructure as well. Despite the low density, it is pain to get around SF and bay area generally unless you are luck enough to have a trip that starts or ends near one of the few rail lines. Double the density, and getting around would go from bad to worse.
  - panic 9y ago
    That's not necessarily true. More density could allow people to live closer to work and reduce the amount of traffic.
    - WillPostForFood 9y ago
      Even in dense cities (Manhattan), most people don't live walking distance to work. But they have a great public transportation system, so it works. The Bay Area has a terrible public transit system, and if you add density without improving it will get a lot harder to get around. Also, the big tech jobs centers (apple/facebook/Google) are in the south bay, and many of their employees (especially those without kids) choose to live in San Francisco because it is a much more interesting vibrant interesting place than Mountain View, Menlo Park, or Cupertino. Someone living in Noe Valley and working at Apple could already live closer to work, for much less, if that's what they wanted. So adding high density housing will allow some people to live closer, and some to live farther, but it will add incrementally more traffic. That's fine, but let's at least address the infrastructure in tandem, if not first.
tepe1 9y ago
The thing stopping San Francisco from increasing density is democracy. The people of San Francisco do not want more density. They don't want more traffic and traffic fumes. They don't want more vehicles fighting over limited public spots. They don't want buses. They don't want throngs of young people who often don't share their liberal values wandering around the city at all hours of the night. They don't want huge apartment complexes or luxury residential towers. They don't want to be Manhattan or Paris or even Boston. The people of San Francisco think the city is mostly perfect just the way it is. This is why all proposals to radically increase density (by lifting height restrictions, say) always get democratically voted down. If people are really serious about increasing the density in San Francisco (or anywhere in California, for that matter) the first step, ironically enough, would be to get rid of the people who actually live there.
peterjlee 9y ago
Mostly existing homeowners. More houses mean decrease in their rent income. Also the influential people in city politics probably already own homes.

santaclaus 9y ago

> What's to stop San Francisco from creating a lot more high-density housing? Entrenched residents who oppose new construction, primarily. Look at the recent kerfuffles involving residents opposing the replacement of parking lots with housing.

WillPostForFood 9y ago
Lack of infrastructure as well. Despite the low density, it is pain to get around SF and bay area generally unless you are luck enough to have a trip that starts or ends near one of the few rail lines. Double the density, and getting around would go from bad to worse.
- panic 9y ago
  That's not necessarily true. More density could allow people to live closer to work and reduce the amount of traffic.
  - WillPostForFood 9y ago
    Even in dense cities (Manhattan), most people don't live walking distance to work. But they have a great public transportation system, so it works. The Bay Area has a terrible public transit system, and if you add density without improving it will get a lot harder to get around. Also, the big tech jobs centers (apple/facebook/Google) are in the south bay, and many of their employees (especially those without kids) choose to live in San Francisco because it is a much more interesting vibrant interesting place than Mountain View, Menlo Park, or Cupertino. Someone living in Noe Valley and working at Apple could already live closer to work, for much less, if that's what they wanted. So adding high density housing will allow some people to live closer, and some to live farther, but it will add incrementally more traffic. That's fine, but let's at least address the infrastructure in tandem, if not first.

tepe1 9y ago

The thing stopping San Francisco from increasing density is democracy. The people of San Francisco do not want more density. They don't want more traffic and traffic fumes. They don't want more vehicles fighting over limited public spots. They don't want buses. They don't want throngs of young people who often don't share their liberal values wandering around the city at all hours of the night. They don't want huge apartment complexes or luxury residential towers. They don't want to be Manhattan or Paris or even Boston. The people of San Francisco think the city is mostly perfect just the way it is. This is why all proposals to radically increase density (by lifting height restrictions, say) always get democratically voted down. If people are really serious about increasing the density in San Francisco (or anywhere in California, for that matter) the first step, ironically enough, would be to get rid of the people who actually live there.

peterjlee 9y ago

Mostly existing homeowners. More houses mean decrease in their rent income. Also the influential people in city politics probably already own homes.